


The Fifth Year

by Amuly



Series: Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood [6]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2011-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a seven-year-old boy falls through the Rift, Ianto and Jack decide to adopt him. This is the story of his life at Torchwood.<b></b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwil, Jack, and Ianto move into their home... that they had been “living in” for the past three years. Gwil asks Jack about Boeshane.

Gwil followed Ianto from the SUV to the front door, peering first at the box in his arms, then up at Ianto. “Come on, Tad. I can help.”

Ianto just shifted the box in his arms and nudged the front door open with his foot. “You don't need to help. Between Martha, Mickey, myself, and your dad, we've got plenty of hands.” Glancing once more at the label on top of the box – _kitchen_ – Ianto brought the box to the appropriate room and set it on the counter. Gwil was frowning up at him, pout threatening at the corners of his mouth and eyes hooded. Ianto sighed, resisting the urge to rub his back. He was too young for a bad back – Torchwood injuries be damned. “Why don't you go outside and play?” he prodded. “There's that tree in the yard. And maybe the neighbors have some kids you can meet.”

Gwil was peering at a box by his foot, seemingly not listening to Ianto. “I could start opening boxes and putting stuff away? I could hang my clothes up?”

“Champ!” Jack bustled into the kitchen, two boxes stacked so high in his arms that he had to lean around them to see where he was going. Ianto immediately stepped in to grab the top box. _Living room_. Sighing, Ianto retraced Jack's steps to put the box in it's rightful place.

“Dad, tell Tad I can help!” Gwil's voice was loud enough to reach Ianto in the living room as he set the box down. Ianto sighed, sharing a look with Martha as she came through the front door and set a box down next to his. 

“Giving you trouble?”

Running a hand through his hair, Ianto shrugged, at a loss. “I don't know what's gotten into him. I told him to run outside and play, and all he wants to do his help.”

“Then let him help,” Martha suggested, shrugging. They started back to the SUV together, passing Mickey as he maneuvered awkwardly up the drive, pushing a rolling desk chair with a box on it in front of him. As they reached the boot of the SUV, Martha turned to Ianto. “He just wants to be a grown-up.”

Ianto rolled his eyes as he grabbed a box. “He's eleven.”

“That's old!” Martha nudged her shoulder into Ianto's as they headed back up to the house together, weighted down with a box in both their arms. “Eleven's old enough to have crushes, and mobiles, and stay up until it's gone nine. Eleven is secondary school!” 

As they set their boxes down in the master bedroom, Ianto could hear Jack and Gwil arguing in the kitchen, still. Ianto rubbed his temples. “Don't remind me. Does this mean he's a teenager now? Do I have to start worrying about giving him condoms and telling him not to do drugs?”

Martha laughed, cuffing Ianto lightly on the shoulder as they headed back out to the car. Ianto ignored Gwil as he stormed past, book clutched in one hand and thunderous expression on his face. Jack peered out of the kitchen a moment later, looking baffled. Martha snickered behind her hand, prompting Ianto to elbow her. She held out her hands in supplication. “Sorry, sorry.” She snickered. “But it  _is_ pretty funny. He just wants to help – it's not like he's asking to go to a club.”

Ianto shook his head. “That's not the point. I don't need him underfoot or accidentally breaking something. Besides, he should be happy. I'm telling him  _not_ to work.” When they stepped outside Gwil was sitting against the side of the house, nose buried in his book. Ianto purposefully ignored him, before shooting Jack a  _look_ to make sure he did the same. Bratty behavior certainly wouldn't be tolerated, preteen drama or no.

Just before Ianto climbed into the boot of the SUV, ready to drag out some of the boxes further back, he spotted a couple looking on curiously. They were getting out of their car at the house next door – neighbors, then, Ianto assumed. Making eye contact with Jack, he inclined his head in their direction. “I'm going to...”

“Right.” Jack pressed a kiss to Ianto's forehead before slipping a hand over his neck in a sort of caress. “Go on: toe the company line.”

With an affectionate eye roll Ianto headed off, down the walk to the neighbors' house. He spared a moment to glance over at Gwil, who was still resolutely reading his book against the side of the house. Good. It might keep him occupied enough for them to at least get everything in the house and a little bit unpacked.

“Good morning.” Ianto put on his best civil-servant smile, extending his hand first to the man, then to the woman standing in their driveway. “I'm Ianto Jones. You must be our neighbors.”

The man smiled back a little unsteadily. “Suppose so. Christian Herbert. This is my wife, Jane.” Ianto smiled pleasantly at the introductions as Christian continued. “You just moving in? I thought you lot had moved out last year. Never saw a moving van, but you stopped coming in and going out of the house, so we reckoned-”

“We had,” Ianto confirmed. “My partner, Jack, and I got called away on some emergency business out of town. Packed up and left practically overnight. But now that's taken care of, so we're moving back in. Hopefully it won't happen again.”

The wife – _Jane_ , thought Ianto – eyed the SUV sitting in their drive, the word _Torchwood_ so clearly inscribed on the hood. “Right.” She drew out the word so that it seemed three syllables instead of one. Ianto winced. “Emergency business, you said.”

Ianto nodded. “We work for the government. Civil service.”

Now it was Christian's turn to nod and look skeptical. As Ianto continued to school his features in a careful mask of blandness, the couple apparently came to the conclusion that neither of them would press the issue. “That lad yours?” Christian asked, changing the subject.

Ianto turned to look at Gwil, partly to confirm that Christian was looking at him, partly to make sure he was staying out of trouble. Indeed, Gwil was still sitting there reading, though his expression seemed to have eased somewhat as he grew more engrossed with his book. “Gwil,” Ianto confirmed. “He's starting secondary school this year.”

Jane's smile was easier now. “That's such an exciting year! They really start to grow up once they reach secondary school.” She turned to her husband and waved a hand between them. “We have one in ninth year, and one starting sixth form.”

“You must be very proud,” Ianto said politely. He stole a glance back at Gwil, then at Martha and Mickey as they walked up the drive, arms heavy with boxes. He did his best not to fidget, instead turning back to the Herberts with a small smile. “Sorry, but-”

Christian bobbed his head, waving Ianto away. “Of course. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of you, anyway. And if you need anything while you're settling back in, don't be afraid to ask.”

Ianto smiled and shook their hands again, before hurrying back over to the SUV. He found Jack sitting in the almost-empty boot, grinning madly at him. “If we shut the door, do you think we could-”

“Jack.”

Jack grinned as he slid a box down to Ianto. “Figured it couldn't hurt to ask.”

**

Ianto stretched his legs out in front of him on the floor of their living room, reaching toward his toes experimentally. His back had a rather vocal complaint for that movement. Ianto quickly leaned back against their sofa. 

“I think someone could use a massage, later.” Ianto glanced behind him to see Jack hurrying over, two bags of Chinese food clutched in one hand. He set them down on the floor in front of Ianto, before swooping in and pressing a kiss to his forehead. Ianto sighed. 

“A massage sounds heavenly,” he murmured as Jack dropped down next to him. Two big hands found his shoulders and started rubbing, causing Ianto to moan rather embarrassingly.

“Ew.” Ianto opened his eyes to see Gwil peering nervously at them. “You're not going to do anything before dinner, are you?”

Jack laughed, reaching out a hand to tug Gwil down to join them on the floor. “ _No_ ,” he declared. Gwil settled into his lap and Jack tickled him for good measure, causing the boy to squirm away, quick as he could. “Tad and I'll save that for later.” 

Ianto quirked an eyebrow as he started dividing up the Chinese food among them. “As flattered as I am that you think I have unlimited amounts of energy, I don't. And I think I just spent the last of it hauling the kitchen table in with Mickey.”

Jack snorted into his brown rice. “Too bad the chairs will have to wait for tomorrow.”

After swallowing a rather meaty mouthful of shrimp and lo mien, Ianto shrugged. “We got the beds in – those are probably the most important big items we needed to move in today.”

“Dad?” Gwil was poking at his lo mien, making a valiant attempt with his chop sticks. He almost had them working – about a quarter of the time. When he looked up at Jack, his eyes were hooded. “Where's Boeshane?”

Ianto's eyes darted immediately to Jack, whose mouth had fallen into a silent  _oh_ . After taking a moment to collect himself, Jack started: “Where'd-”

“The Doctor,” Ianto replied softly. “He said something off-handed while he was here. I told Gwil we'd talk about it later.” He sighed, setting down his carton of Chinese food with the chopsticks sticking out the top. “And it _is_ later, isn't it?” 

“It's not Earth, is it?” Gwil pried. “The Doctor said Earth and Boeshane, like they were different, like Mars and Earth are different planets. So it's not Earth, right?”

“That's right,” Jack said, words falling slowly from his lips. His eyes were cautious as he regarded Gwil, and goodness knows Ianto understood why. There was so much to Jack that Gwil didn't know – that he was an alien, that he wasn't entirely human, that he was from the fifty-first century, and, of course, the little matter of his immortality. Ianto understood Jack still wanted to keep as much as he could from Gwil – just to give them all a few more years of pretending to be normal. 

“So you're an alien?”

“Little bit,” Jack said, smile flickering across his face. “I'm not from Earth. But you know how we talked about people living all across the universe, on lots and lots of different planets?” Gwil nodded. Facts like these were fed to him as normally as facts about the British government. “Well, I just happen to be from one of those other ones, and it's called Boeshane.”

Gwil's eyes lit up. “What's it like, there? Is it really different?”

Ianto's eyes flickered between Jack and Gwil. Jack wasn't one to go sharing information about his past – Ianto himself had barely heard Jack talk about Boeshane, maybe even only once in the years he had known him. 

But Jack was smiling softly down at Gwil, eyes wistful. “Sandy. Like the beach. All sand, as far as the eye could see. And warm. It wasn't anything like Cardiff. It was warm all year round: no snow, hardly any rain. We'd always wear sandals and these light tunics, made of... well, it's not something on Earth, but it's like a light cotton.”

Gwil was listening with rapt attention. “That sounds like Persia,” he breathed. “Like in the stories of Babylon.”

Jack laughed, leaning against the couch, his gaze far away from the small living room dinner he was a part of. “I suppose it was, in a way. It had it's own magic to it, like Babylon in your stories.”

With Jack lost in his own thoughts, Ianto turned to Gwil. “You know you can't tell your friends about this.”

“Yeah,” Gwil said with an eye roll. “I _know_. They all think Dad's American, anyway.”

Ianto nodded. “That's probably for the best. Now come on,” Ianto picked up his takeaway container and chopsticks, gesturing at Gwil with them. “Eat up, and then we're getting you to bed. We've got more moving to do tomorrow.”

Before he picked his own food back up, Gwil turned back to Jack. “Dad, would you tell me stories about Boeshane? Like for bedtime?”

Not so discreetly wiping at his eyes, Jack nodded. His smile was tight, but there was a genuineness to it that surprised Ianto, who had always assumed Jack hadn't wanted to talk about his childhood. “Yeah,” Jack said. “I'll tell you all about it.”  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwil has his first school dance; Jack and Ianto behave like terrible parents and spy on him.

Gwil rolled his eyes as he pulled back from Ianto's hands, which were trying to straighten his tie. “ _Tad_ ,” he groaned. “It's _fine_. I did it right.”

Ianto frowned at the knot, tugging at it just a bit between forefinger and thumb before stepping back. “Just double-checking,” he muttered. 

Just as Ianto was stepping forward again to smooth down Gwil's curls – and Gwil was yanking his head away, a scowl on his face – Jack bounded into the living room, camera in hand. “Pictures!”

Both Ianto and Gwil turned to Jack, matching frowns on their faces. “Not of me,” Ianto insisted, taking a step back. Gwil stared up at him like his Tad had just betrayed him. 

But Jack stepped forward and placed a hand on Ianto's shoulder, urging him back to Gwil. “Come on,” he urged. “I want at least  _one_ picture with both of my gorgeous men.”

Matching eye-rolls replied to Jack's flattery, but Ianto scooted into Gwil and wrapped his arm around him. Begrudgingly Gwil lifted his head to look at the camera, flashing a smile at the last second before the picture, then dropping it just as quickly. Jack tutted as he took another quick picture, laughing when Ianto and Gwil both protested that they weren't ready. “What's with all the frowning, anyway?” Jack prodded.”It's your first dance! And you've got a date!”

“She's not my _date_ ,” Gwil insisted, fiddling with his cufflinks. “Estella's just a friend. We're just going together as friends.”

Jack nodded knowingly. “That's what they all say,” he confirmed. “Trust me: ask her for a few slow dances, treat her right, and you'll be getting a kiss by the end of the night.”

Gwil's entire face flushed red. He yanked himself away from Ianto – who had just been trying to get a stray piece of lint off his lapel – and put as much distance between himself and his parents as their living room would allow. “It's not like that!” he insisted from over by the telly. “She's just a friend.”

Seeing the distress Gwil was in, Ianto frowned over at Jack, about to tell him to stop. But Jack was grinning broadly, obviously having too much fun. “And,” he continued, rolling the camera in his hands thoughtfully as he spoke, “if you need some  _alone time_ with her, just put your tie on your bedroom door. We won't come in.”

Ianto coughed delicately. “I don't think we're quite at that age, yet,” he warned. Gwil sagged visibly in relief from his safe zone next to the telly. 

Jack laughed but didn't press the issue, instead snapping another picture of Gwil as he stood, wide-eyed and terrified on the opposite end of the room. Gwil scowled at the flash, prompting Jack to take another picture. “ _Dad_ !”

Looking significantly at his watch, Ianto nodded to the front door. “Right, don't want to be late, then. Are you  _sure_ you want to walk?” 

Gwil shot Ianto an exasperated  _look_ , which Ianto thought that maybe he should chastise Gwil for, but he let slide. Better Gwil be a little defiant than scared of upsetting him or Jack. Just so long as it didn't get out of hand and start being outright rude. “You have the Torchwood car. I don't want to go to her house in the  _Torchwood_ car.”

Ianto frowned. “We could take my car.”

Jack made a noise at the same time Gwil wrinkled up his nose, and then Ianto remembered. “Right,” he muttered, pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. “The exploding fish eggs last week.” He had stopped noticing the smell days ago, but he knew it was still there. Secretly, Ianto was considering selling the car for scrap and getting a new one, since otherwise he'd have to have the entire interior redone. He just hadn't told Jack about his plans, yet. And he hadn't finished his research, either.

“Why don't we walk you just to the end of the block?” Jack suggested. 

Gwil narrowed his eyes, but nodded after a moment's consideration. “Okay. But no teasing!”

Jack held up his hands palms out in surrender. “Promise.”

As Ianto held open the door for the two of them, Jack wrapped a big hand around Gwil's shoulder as he steered him down the path. “So what's Estella like? This female-friend-who's-not-your-girlfriend?”

Gwil glared at Jack's entirely unsubtle teasing, but said nothing about it. “She's from Spain. Her parents moved here a couple years ago, but they're not British yet. She said she's an alien.” Gwil scrunched up his nose and laughed, Jack and Ianto sharing a look and joining in as they walked behind him. “At first I thought she meant a _real_ alien! I told her not to say it so loud, but then she said from Spain. So humans are aliens too, I guess, if they're from other places.” Gwil turned his head around and up to glance back at Jack. “Like you.”

Jack and Ianto exchanged a look. “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Human. Just from somewhere else.” When Gwil turned back to face forward again, Jack looked at Ianto and winced, before shrugging. Ianto just shrugged back. They hadn't decided when they'd tell Gwil about Jack's not-entirely-human DNA, or that not only was he from Boeshane, but Boeshane sometime around 5,025. Jack's mantra for years now had just been “later”, and Ianto hadn't the heart to push the issue just yet.

“Is she nice?” Ianto asked, steering the conversation back to safer waters.

“ _Real_ nice. And funny,” Gwil added. “She likes making jokes about waffles. And bunnies.”

Ianto just nodded and ignored Jack's bafflement. Sometimes it was just safer to nod, with kids these days. Ianto shook his head, frowning at himself. He sounded like an old man.

Gwil was continuing to wax poetic about Estella. “And she's got really long, silk dark brown hair. It's like.. it's almost Asian, it's so dark and silky.” 

Again, Ianto found himself having to ignore the faces Jack was making, though a smile did quirk at Ianto's own lips. He risked a glance over at Jack, who pressed a hand to his heart before he stuck his fingers into a semblance of a heart. Ianto stifled a snort. “You've been spending too much time with the women, lately,” he teased Jack.

“All Martha's fault,” Jack replied. “She did it last week when we were at the pub. Going on about some new stud actor. Gwen and Tosh did it back, so I thought I'd try it out sometime.”

“And her eyes are so _brown_ ,” Gwil breathed. Ianto turned his attention away from Jack, who had started to thump the finger-heart against his chest in a mock-heartbeat, and back to Gwil. “All our eyes are blue, but Estella's eyes are really, really brown. Darker than Uncle Owen's. And bigger!”

Ianto hummed knowingly. “Big doe eyes,” he commented. “I can see the appeal.” For a moment Ianto's mind flashed back to Lisa: her beautiful brown eyes illuminated by candlelight on one of their first dates. He felt a twinge of guilt, even still, before Jack was nudging him in the shoulder with a grin on his face.

“I dunno, champ: I'm partial to blue right now, myself.”

Ianto gave Jack a look that said he knew exactly what Jack was doing, but smiled anyway. Gwil satisfied himself with a quiet noise of disgust, before slowing to a stop as they reached a corner. “That's the end of the block,” he informed his parents, turning around. “You can go home now.”

Reluctantly Jack and Ianto stopped, both men peering down the streets, trying to spot Estella's house from there. When Gwil started shifting around discontentedly, Ianto relented with just one last check over Gwil's suit. Jack moved to ruffle Gwil's hair, only to have Gwil leap away and cover his head defensively. “It's the way I want it, Dad!”

Jack held his hands up before shoving them in his pockets. “Have fun,” he commanded.

“Be safe,” Ianto countered. “The dance ends at ten, so I expect you home by ten thirty at the absolute latest. And remember that you don't have to stay until the end if you don't want to.”

Gwil rolled his eyes. “Fine. Okay. Go!” He made shooing motions with his hands, obviously refusing to turn around and continue on his way until his parents were safely heading in the opposite direction. Ianto let himself be shooed, turning with Jack back down to their house. He glanced over his shoulder one more time as they walked, to see Gwil nervously tugging his curls upwards as he hurried down the path.

**

Ianto paused for a moment in his reading, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He understood that to the U.S. Torchwood office this matter seemed like the utmost importance, but for the life of him Ianto couldn't see the reason they had a rush order on a currently inert, probably inanimate object. Opening his eyes wide, Ianto returned his attention to his laptop. If he could just get through this one last parameter search, he could message back the office with ninety-eight percent certainty that there was nothing in their files on the object, and then worry about double-checking any files of theirs that remained non-electronic tomorrow.

“Oh! Oh, Ianto! Quick!” Jack's excited voice reached Ianto from the living room. Startled, Ianto jumped up from his desk and hurried to him.

Jack was sitting on their bed, bowl of popcorn in his lap and rapt attention focused on the telly. Ianto turned to the wall where the screen was mounted, face splitting into a grin when he saw the grainy CCTV footage that currently filled it. “Oh,” he said, hurrying over to join Jack on the bed without taking his eyes off the screen. Wordlessly Jack passed him an opened beer and held out the popcorn, which Ianto took a handful of.

“They just left the school,” Jack updated Ianto. As he watched, Gwil and Estella – who really did appear to have beautiful long, silky dark hair – stepped out of frame. A moment later the image changed to another CCTV camera, and Gwil and Estella were back in frame. The picture zoomed as Jack fiddled with his wrist strap. Ianto took a sip of his beer. Bless Torchwood technology.

Jack gasped as the two little figures continued to walk, nudging Ianto hard on the shoulder. “Did you see that? Their hands brushed!”

Ianto squinted at the screen as he toed his shoes off and tugged his legs up onto the bed, crossing them as Jack's already were. He reached for another handful of popcorn as he watched. “That may have been an accident,” he mused.

But Jack was shaking his head. “No way. No boy of mine is going to 'accidently' brush a girl's hand. That was on purpose.”

As the couple went out of frame again, Jack fixed it with a single button pressed on his wriststrap. Now Gwil and Estella were heading up her drive, walk meandering slower and slower as the night drew to a close.

Pointing with his beer at the telly, Ianto observed: “His palms are sweaty. He's wiping them on his trousers.”

Jack was leaning forward, popcorn almost tumbling out of his lap as he cheered on the imagine on the telly. “Come on, Gwil. Go in for the kiss. You can do it!”

Ianto shook his head, grinning into his beer. “He's not going to do it,” he said into the neck before taking a swig. “He's too nervous.”

Jack's hands were clenched into fists as he pumped them up and down. “Come on, come on. You'll regret it if you don't.”

Abruptly, little Estella leaned forward on the screen and pecked a kiss to Gwil's cheek, before jumping back in embarrassment. She escaped into her house not a moment later, leaving a stunned Gwil gaping on her doorstep, hand slowly drifting up to touch his cheek. Jack let out a whoop, nearly upsetting the popcorn in his lap before Ianto grabbed it and tugged it to safety.

**

When the front door opened and shut a few minutes later, the telly was turned back to the normal stations and Jack and Ianto wandered slowly out of their room, both with their best innocent faces on. “How was the dance?” Ianto asked, all casual curiosity.

“Fine.” Gwil shrugged, glancing warily at his parents. “The music wasn't very good.”

“It never is,” Ianto sympathized.

“What about...” Jack started, before Ianto glanced over at him. Jack did his best to look reassuring before turning back to Gwil. “What about your friends? They all have a good time?”

“Michael and Tyler got kicked out for exploding the toilets,” he informed them. Jack and Ianto took this news matter-of-factly. From what they had learned of Gwil's two new friends so far this year, the two boys were brilliant. Brilliant, and either going to burn the school down or discover cold fusion by the time they graduated. Possibly both.

“You didn't get in trouble, did you?” Ianto asked needlessly. If he had, they would have gotten a call, and Gwil wouldn't have been able to have his walk home with Estella.

“Nope.” Gwil popped his 'p'. “So...” he eyed his parents, “Okay. Night.”

“Night!” Jack and Ianto chimed, watching as Gwil headed to his room.

He stopped just outside, peering back suspiciously at Jack and Ianto. Rather than giving voice to his worries, however, Gwil just asked: “Estella mentioned going to church on Sunday – she goes to a Catholic one. Would it be okay if I went with her family?”

Ianto looked at Jack, both men trying – and failing – to hide their equal parts amusement and surprise. “Sure,” Ianto said. “Just make sure it's okay with her parents. And you have to be respectful.”

Gwil rolled his eyes. “I _know_ ,” he grumbled. “Okay. Thanks. Night.”

They waited until Gwil's door snicked quietly shut behind him before turning to each other. Jack was the first to react: squeezing Ianto's cheeks in his hands and pressing a great smacking kiss to his lips. “I'm going to buy him condoms!”

Ianto's eyes widened, heart going all sick and fluttery as he watched Jack bound over to their shopping list and add “condoms” to the bottom. He underlined it three times with a flourish, before running back over to Ianto and tugging him to the bedroom. Ianto went, somewhat unwillingly, as he stared at that terrifying little word adorning the bottom of their shopping list. “It's going to be a few more years!” he spluttered. “At least five. Ten? Ten's better.”

Jack's laugh sent a shiver through Ianto's system that he couldn't shake for the rest of the night, even curled up into Jack's warmth and drifting to sleep.    
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One night while Jack and Gwil are having a quiet evening in, Gwil asks some questions.

Jack smoothed his fingers over the metal, feeling for the smallest grooves or niches or bumps. His eyes drifted closed as he focused his entire attention to the sensitive nerve endings in his fingertips, trying to find the problem with the device. There had to be some sort of break in the sensitive strips of nano-contact points on its surface. To go over it with a microscope would be painstaking, and Tosh didn't have the technology sensitive enough yet to run a diagnostic on it. But Jack had a feel for these sorts of things – he always had. That sense, plus a lot of charm and luck, had gotten him through the Time Academy in one piece. If he could just find the break...

“Dad?”

Opening his eyes, Jack took a moment to return to himself. He frowned down at the device, and his fingertips lingering on it. He hadn't even covered a square centimeter of its surface area. Sighing, Jack set it aside and turned his focus on the other side of the kitchen table, where Gwil was seated. He had his maths book and notebook out, pencil trapped between his fingers as he tapped it, making light marks in the margins of his paper. Jack noted that most of the page was already filled – almost done, then.

“What's up?” he asked.

Gwil's eyes drifted to the device sitting innocuously on the table. Its shimmering, almost mercurial form seemed out of place, even amid such modern technologies as their flat screen tellies or stainless steel refrigerators. Even Jack's wriststrap, clad in leather in an attempt to disguise the technology within so many years ago, looked old and clunky compared to the too-perfect smoothness of the device. Steve Jobs would turn green with envy.

Setting down his pencil, Gwil pointed his middle finger at the device. “What's that?”

Jack hefted it, turning it over in his hands carefully. Then, after pretending to consider the matter quite seriously, he held it over to the table to Gwil. With just a moment's hesitation – born from plenty of accidents Gwil had been a part of or witnessed over the years, surely – Gwil took the object from Jack. His hands dropped an inch under the surprising weight, before hefting it experimentally, fingers smoothing over the surface.

“It's mail,” Jack said, smiling as he watched Gwil turn the object over and over in his hands. “It's a way of sending very very important packages in the future. I think this was a government document: a bill or law, or maybe just a letter. Either way, it didn't get to its destination.”

Gwil frowned. “Why's it so heavy?”

Clasping his hands in front of him, Jack leaned back in his chair as he relaxed into the conversation. It had been too long of a day to bring his work home with him – he should have realized that hours ago. “There's more in it than just a document. If it's from where I think it's from, the custom is to include a bribe with the bill: a family heirloom, gold, a crown, expensive clothing, that sort of thing.”

Gwil's eyes lit up. “Why haven't you opened it yet, then? Don't know how?”

Jack smirked. “Oh, I know how. But it's broken. Here,” he leaned across the table, Gwil imitating him and doing the same, holding the device out to his dad. Jack ran his finger over the surface slowly. “Run your fingers over it. What do you feel?”

Closing his eyes – likely in an imitation of Jack himself, earlier – Gwil ran his middle finger slowly over the surface of the device. His finger moved slower and slower, until his eyes shot open. “Lines!” he breathed. “There's tiny lines!”

Jack nodded. “Small than the width of a single hair. It's like...” Jack stopped. He was going to say: “Like the grooves in a record,” but he realized that simile wasn't as effective anymore. Instead he settled with “Like the circuits running through a computer chip.”

Gwil nodded in apparent understand, finger still trailing slowly over the lump of future-metal. Finally he turned it back over to Jack, who set it down on the table. “Why doesn't Tad work on stuff like that?” Gwil tapped his pencil on his maths homework some more, cocking his head at Jack.

“Tad's at work right now,” Jack replied. He had already told Gwil this once, when he had come home from the Hub without Ianto. “He wants to finish whatever section of the archives he's working on now.” Jack honestly had no idea what section Ianto was in, though he was pretty sure Ianto had told him at some point. As it was, Ianto was in the middle of the biggest archival revamp Jack had ever witnessed, and Jack had been around to witness a _lot_ of archival overhauls. Ianto had been swamped for months now, coordinating with all the different Torchwood offices all over the world. Even though it meant more time at the Hub and less time at home, Jack was willing to endure the long hours, because it meant that Ianto was almost completely off field duty. For the time being.

“No.” Gwil rolled his eyes, frustration at not being understood obvious. “I meant why d'you always do the future stuff? When Tad or Auntie Tosh or Mickey can't figure it out, you always do it.” Jack stayed quiet as Gwil pondered this, eyes narrowing in thought. “Is it because Boeshane's more futuristic and stuff? They've got better technology than us?”

Jack hesitated, unsure of how to reply. Every time Gwil asked one of these questions – which were becoming more and more frequent, now that he knew Dad was an “alien” – Ianto would glance over at Jack, but say nothing. Jack knew Ianto was trying his best not to pressure him, but he also knew that Ianto felt the younger Gwil learned the weightiest of Jack's secrets, the better. 

Gwil seemed to pick up on Jack's hesitation, because his gaze became sharper, his curiosity more keen. “And I was thinking: how's Boeshane got humans, too? I was thinking about something Auntie Tosh said, about humans forgetting about super tech stuff we once had, like that Greek computer or the Roman steam engine. And I thought maybe humans could go in space once, too, only we just forgot. Did humans get to Boeshane that way? Or was it the other way 'round? 'Cause I don't think humans just appeared in two different places. Uncle Owen was telling me about evolution, and it seems like it'd be a super super coincidence if humans evolved on Earth _and_ Boeshane. ”

Jack sighed, leaning back in his chair. He tapped his fingers against the table, considering his son who sat before him. Finally he pushed up from the table and stepped around, dragging a chair with him so he could sit next to Gwil. The boy shifted, turning sideways in his chair as he watched his father closely. It might not be time to tell _everything_ to Gwil just yet – especially not the worst of Jack's history – but maybe it'd be alright to tell him just a little bit more.

“You want to know a secret?” Jack asked. Gwil's eyes lit up, head nodding vigorously. Jack reached out and patted Gwil's leg, squeezing it between his fingers before speaking. He took a breath, staring straight into Gwil's eyes as he spoke. “I'm from the future.” 

Gwil gasped and looked appropriately amazed, hands going to his mouth as his eyes went wide. “ _Really_ ?” he breathed. 

“Oh yeah.” A crooked smile flashed across Jack's face. “Fifty-first century. That's the year five thousand, or three thousand years in the future. Just about.”

“Does Tad know?!”

Jack laughed. “Yeah. Tad knows. Everyone does. I just...” Jack hesitated, unsure how to explain to Gwil that he didn't want to tell him just yet, that he wanted Gwil to think he was a “normal” Torchwood dad for just a little while longer.

But Gwil seemed to take his exclusion in stride, expression still enraptured by this new information. “So Boeshane's in the future?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah. It's one of the places humans end up colonizing. In the future, humans'll spread out into space, into every nook and cranny and little tiny habitable place they can find. Hell, we even show up in the places that  _aren't_ so habitable, and we just make it work. Because that's what humans do.”

Gwil's eyes glittered with excitement. “What's it like? In the future? Did you fly around on a space ship? Was it like Star Wars? Or Star Trek? Were there robots and laser beams? Oh!” Gwil gasped so loud he startled Jack, hands flailing out to grab at Jack's forearms. “Did you get here like me? Did the Rift swallow you up like me?”

_Oh_ . Jack smiled softly, running a hand through Gwil's curls. He had spent so much time refusing to tell Gwil about himself, that he had never thought about the similarities Gwil might find. Gwil always seemed so much a clone of Ianto, that Jack never stopped to look at the ways Gwil had started to relate to him, as well. “No. Though I  _did_ end up here on accident.”

“How?” Gwil breathed.

Extracting himself from Gwil's grip, Jack flipped open his wriststrap and held his wrist out to Gwil. “You know my fancy device?”

Gwil nodded. “That I'm never ever ever supposed to touch.”

Jack laughed. “You're still not allowed to touch it,” he warned. “But you can look.” Gwil obediently peered down at the buttons and displays. “It's not just for turning on tellies or scanning aliens. It used to be a time travel device: a vortex manipulator. I worked for the Time Agency. I was a professional time traveler, in the fifty-first century.”

Ianto wouldn't be pleased with how enraptured Gwil was, Jack mused.

Big blue eyes gazed admiringly up at Jack. “How'd you come here? Was it a mission?”

“Kind of.” Quickly Jack edited his own history, trying to determine how he wanted to explain it to Gwil. “I traveled back to the nineteen forties – World War Two times. Then I met the Doctor, and we traveled around for a bit. Then...” Jack hesitated. He couldn't say he got stuck in the nineteenth century and then lived to today. As young as Gwil was, he wasn't _that_ young. And tonight proved he'd ben willing to ask questions when things didn't seem to sync properly. “Then I came back here and got stuck, because my vortex manipulator broke. So I stayed and worked for Torchwood.”

“And then you met Tad, right?”

Jack grinned at the simplicity of it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I met Tad, so I decided being stuck here wasn't so bad.”

Gwil nodded, grinning: at the romance of it all, Jack supposed. Gwil had that same romantic streak Ianto had – that idealistic heart that was willing to save a cyberwoman girlfriend; the same heart that was willing to accept Jack, in all his brokenness. 

Just then they were interrupted by the sound of a key scraping in the front lock, followed a moment later by the door opening. Ianto stepped through, looking exhausted and dusty. Leaving Gwil with one more ruffle of Jack's hand through his hair, Jack bounded over to Ianto, taking his messenger bag from his shoulder. Ianto sagged into Jack, exhaustion obvious. “Long day?” Jack asked into Ianto's cheek.

“Unf.” Lifting himself from Jack's chest, Ianto peered past him to the kitchen. “How was school?”

“Fine,” Gwil chimed, already turning his attention back to his homework. “Tyler had a dead chicken leg and was making it move in his sleeve like it was alive.”

Still pressed partially against Jack's chest, Ianto frowned over his shoulder. “Oh.” He turned to Jack. “Did he already tell you about this?”

Jack smirked. “Yeah. And he's washed his hands.”

“I didn't _touch it_ ,” Gwil huffed from his spot at the kitchen table. Jack turned and looked at him, keeping one arm wrapped around Ianto's waist. “Well,” Gwil acquiesced, “I washed my hands right after. And Dad made me wash them _again_ before dinner.”

Pressing a kiss to Ianto's head, hand stroking at his hip. “Do you want to take a bath? I could bring you dinner in the tub.”

Ianto's eyes lit up. “That sounds more amazing than it really should.”

They kissed, then Jack was nudging Ianto off to their bathroom and keeping his messenger bag hostage. “Go on, then,” he urged. “Oh, and...” he nodded over at Gwil before lowering his voice. “We talked. About the fifty-first century.”

Ianto's eyes softened, and he took an unconscious step back toward Jack. “Oh. Do-”

“Later,” Jack insisted. He shooed Ianto again, turning him bodily around with hands to his shoulders toward their bathroom. “For now, you get in the tub, I'll get your dinner warmed up.”

With Ianto safely off to his relaxation time, Jack tossed his messenger bag on the sofa and headed off to the kitchen to heat up his dinner. As he passed Gwil, Jack ran a hand through his hair again, causing Gwil to squirm away from his touch. Jack laughed, the happiness burning deep in his chest. Ianto was right: it was a _little_ bit of a relief to share a bit more of himself with Gwil. Jack just wasn't ready to tell him everything just yet.   
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When a seven-year-old boy falls through the Rift, Ianto and Jack decide to adopt him. This is the story of his life at Torchwood. ****Ianto turns 30, but it doesn't bother him. Really. Also: Tosh gets some help babysitting Gwil.

“Wake up.”

Ianto grumbled and tugged the sheets up to his neck.

“Wake up.”

Now he yanked the pillow over his head.

“It's because you're thirty, isn't it?”

Finally Ianto cracked an eye open, peering out from between pillows and blankets. Jack was looking down at him, blue eyes searching through a tangle of cloth to meet Ianto's. “What?” Ianto finally croaked, voice an octave lower than normal in the early morning.

“Happy birthday.”

Ianto groaned and squeezed his eyes closed, shutting out the image of Jack's earnest face.

“You're freaking out, aren't you?”

“I'm not Brian Kinney, Jack.” Ianto spoke with his eyes still shut.

The mattress shifted, and there was a rustling of sheets as Jack moved around. Ianto waited, not opening his eyes, as he felt cool air breeze over his face, followed by the warm heat of Jack's breath ghosting over his lips. Ianto's lips quirked into a reluctant smile as he smelled toothpaste on Jack's breath. So courteous of Jack, on his birthday. “What do you want? To start?”

Ianto considered the question as he let Jack kiss him, sucking Jack's lower lip gently into his mouth. Finally Ianto released him and opened his eyes. He hummed, eyes tracking slowly over Jack's face. “How about,” he considered his options. “Just a quick blow job? To start?”

“To start?” Jack teased, but he was already making his way down Ianto's body, pushing the sheets aside as he went.

Maneuvering the pillow beneath him as he lifted himself up onto his elbows, Ianto watched with eyes half-lidded as Jack peppered soft kisses to his chest, then his stomach, then his hips. “Well I gathered you had plans for us, when you scheduled us for a day off together. And Tosh mentioned something about babysitting?”

Jack hummed but said nothing more, instead choosing to delegate a much more important task than talking to his mouth. Ianto let his head fall back onto the pillows and eyes flutter shut again as he enjoyed his birthday morning.

**

Ianto lay on the camp bed in the Hub, too blissed-out to move. His stomach kept twitching, and little waves of pleasure kept spiking through his system, like he was having a constant, low orgasm. It had been amazing the first ten minutes of post-coital ecstasy, but honestly now it was bordering on annoying. He wanted to get up, get his trousers back on, and head home to Gwil. But as it was, his skin was too sensitive for clothes. Every time he even shifted against the sheets, his body reacted like it was feeling Jack's tongue was inside of him, instead of just cotton rubbing against his shoulders.

“We could spend the night here,” Jack whispered into Ianto's ear, splayed out on top of him. Ianto moaned and turned his head uselessly to the side. Even Jack's breath against his ear was overstimulating.

“This was a fantastic idea,” Ianto finally said. He rubbed his hand against Jack's back, shivering at the sensation. It was like he was _high_ – that's how over-stimulated his body _still_ felt from their love making. “It was a treat to be as loud as we wanted,” he continued.

Jack's laugh was a rumble through both their bodies, causing a shudder to travel down Ianto's spine and pool somewhere in his hips – the nerves in that entire region of his body were so lit up, he wasn't sure if he could tell the difference between a kiss to his left hipbone or his right. It all felt like one giant power plant of sensation. “That's why I brought you back here.” There was a pause that Ianto and Jack filled with their light breathing, Ianto willing his body down from its pleasurable heights. They  _really_ needed to get back home eventually. Poor Tosh needed her sleep, too.

“You liked the rest of it though, right?” Jack asked. “The observatory; the dinner?”

Ianto ran his finger pads down Jack's ribs, tickling at the muscles he could feel stretched tight across. “Of course. It was perfect.”

“So no mid-life crisis? Or quarter-life crisis?”

Ianto laughed, nudging at Jack. They  _really_ needed to get home, now. It was gone midnight already. “No crisis. Though I think I might have to start dying my hair. Been finding more and more greys.”

They pushed off each other finally, Jack peering around the floor for his clothes, Ianto content to sit and wait until Jack was dressed to undertake the process himself. “You know, now that you mention it,” Jack mused, bent over as he reached down to snatch up his pants. Lazily Ianto skittered fingers through his chest hair and down to his stomach as he admired the view. “I think I noticed a couple greys in your pubic hair.”

A shudder – of the non-pleasurable kind – went through Ianto's body. Swiftly he propped himself up, peering down at his pubic hair. Surely there couldn't be. Not yet?

Jack came back over to the bed in just his pants, swinging a leg over Ianto's hips and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Here,” he said, sliding down a bit so he could peer properly down at Ianto's groin. “Hang on... aha!” Gently Jack separated one hair from the others, holding it out between thumb and forefinger. Ianto peered down at it. It was most decidedly grey.

“You don't suppose that's blonde?” he pleaded. “I mean, it's not like you can tell by coarseness, since all my hair down there is coarse. It could just be blonde. Or light brown.”

With a sharp tug Jack plucked the hair, causing Ianto to yelp and reach for the thatch of pubic hair above his groin.  _Ow_ ! Now was  _not_ the time to pluck pubic hair! Not when his body was as oversensitive as it was. 

Jack ignored Ianto's distress and instead examined the pubic hair more closely, bringing it inches away from his eye. “It's definitely grey,” he announced after a moment's careful deliberation. “Look.” Ianto peered at the grey hair when Jack proffered it. There wasn't much use denying it: it was grey.

Ianto peered mournfully up at Jack. “Do you suppose I can use the same dye on the hair on my head as my pubic hair? Or is there some kind of special kind?”

Jack seemed to ponder this as he flicked the grey pubic hair away, over the side of the bed. “Why don't we come to a compromise?” he proposed. “Don't dye your pubic hair, so I can watch you turn grey. But if you really want to, you can dye the hair on your head.”

At a loss for how to reply to this, Ianto just nodded. If he was uncertain of the proposal, the way Jack's face lit up made Ianto's mind up for him. He thought it was kind of stupid – letting his pubic hair go grey just so Jack could watch. In a way, it was almost disturbing: a visible reminder of mortality that Jack could never achieve in his partner, going greyer and greyer with each passing year, like sand running out of an hourglass. But it seemed to tickle Jack's fancy for now, so Ianto would leave it.

“Hey.” Jack squeezed Ianto's thighs between his own. “No grouchiness.” His thumb traced a line under Ianto's lower lip, pushing it up in an effort to force it into a smile. Ianto ended up smiling in response to the gesture. “No depressing thoughts. Not until tomorrow at least.”

Ianto made great show of looking at his watch, even though he knew the time. “It already is tomorrow. Can I bemoan my old age and mortality now?”

Leaning in, Jack nipped playfully at Ianto's ear. Ianto laughed and turned to the side, allowing him more access. “Never,” Jack whispered between nips. “Never.”

**

It was nearly one by the time they pulled up to their house. There was only a single light visible from the street in the living room. Gwil's bedroom light was off, to Ianto's approval. It might have been a Saturday night, but that didn't mean he could stay up _this_ late.

Jack's body was pressed warm against Ianto's back as he unlocked their front door, lips pressing behind Ianto's ear and cold nose rubbing there after. Ianto laughed quietly as they pushed the door open, trying to shush Jack at the same time and failing.

When they stepped inside Ianto stopped short, causing Jack to bump into him. Inside their living room, Tosh jumped up from their couch, blushing bright red from beneath thick strands of black hair. Next to her, Owen stood up as well, smoothing a hand back through his hair. 

“Hey.” Jack spoke over Ianto's shoulder. 

“Hey.” Owen's hands were wiping nervously at his trousers now. “Ianto. Jack.”

“So, huh.” Ianto blinked rapidly, turning to glance at Jack. Jack just shrugged, so Ianto turned back to Owen and Tosh, who were shifting uneasily in their spots in front of the couch. “So,” Ianto continued, hands fluttering at his hips for wont of something else to do. “I trust Gwil didn't give you any trouble?”

Tosh shook her head, hair flying around her jaw. “No! No trouble! We- I put him to bed about two hours ago.”

“He did want me to tell you that he's too old for babysitters,” Owen chimed in. “Which I agree with. What is he, twelve?”

“Eleven.” Ianto's expression was dry as he looked at Owen. “And we do leave him alone. I just don't like him to be alone this late at night.”

Ianto watched as Owen and Tosh looked back at him and Jack. There was an extended moment of uncomfortable silence, which Ianto finally broke by throwing his thumb over his shoulder to the front door. “So you can-”

“Right!” Propelled into action by Ianto's words, Tosh started scrambling around for her purse. Owen just stepped out of her way, hovering at the side of the living room as inconspicuously as possible – that was, not at all.

As Ianto and Jack stepped further into their house, Ianto could see a movie was playing on the telly: _Forbidden Planet_. By the time Ianto turned to Owen and raised an eyebrow, Tosh was popping the DVD out of the player and shoving it into her purse. The next moment her hand darted out and snatched at Owen's shirt, dragging him over to the entranceway. Jack and Ianto parted, both in a state of bemused bewilderment as the couple moved past them.

Tosh hurried out the front door first, but Owen lingered behind, turning to Ianto. He looked Ianto up and down, then winked. “Have a good birthday, then?”

Ianto shared a glance with Jack, both men breaking into impossible grins. “Definitely,” Ianto replied. He quirked an eyebrow at Owen as he tried to school his features into something that didn't scream sex-stupid. “You, too? Enjoy my birthday, that is?”

Owen shrugged – almost  _sheepishly_ , it looked to Ianto – before glancing over his shoulder at Tosh. She was in the process of throwing her purse into her car and practically jumping into it. “Yeah. Yeah, it's... it's going pretty good.” A slow smile slipped over Owen's face as he watched Tosh jamming her keys into her ignition, then settling to wait nervously for him. Owen turned back to Ianto, clasping a hand to his shoulder. “Anyway, cheers mate. Happy birthday.”

Ianto closed the door quickly after Owen, to spare Tosh any further nerve-wracking seconds of observation. He turned back to Jack, who was grinning, albeit somewhat confusedly. “I thought Tosh was dating Andy.”

Ianto blinked. Then he pushed past Jack and headed to the bedroom, shaking his head as he went. “How could you think that?” 

Jack's footsteps followed him into the bedroom, door shutting as Ianto slid out of his clothes. “Andy had let something slip about a woman understanding his line of work. I assumed it was Tosh.”

As they slid into bed together, Ianto pressed a kiss to Jack's temple. “It must be someone else – maybe someone in MI6. Anyway,” Ianto settled into his pillows with a happy sigh, “it's always been Owen and Tosh. It just took Owen a little while to realize it himself.”

Jack hummed something noncommittal next to him. In the next minute both their breaths had slowed, the two men about to fall into an easy slumber after the exertions of the day.

Just before Ianto drifted off, Jack shifted next to him. 

“Wait: but then who is Andy dating?”  
  
  
  


 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwil's 12th birthday is interrupted by the Rift; Gwil doesn't take this as well as Ianto and Jack might have thought.

Ianto swore even as he spun the wheel of his Audi, running a red light and turning illegally.

“What?” Jack was holding his hand to the comm in his ear as he tried to listen to Andy, confusion evident on his face. “What do you mean 'the women'?”

“ _I mean the women. All the women! Martha, Toshiko, and Gwen are all in some sort of... dunno, coma, or something. At least, Owen says it's a coma.”_

Hanging onto the handle above the window, Jack growled at Andy as Ianto maneuvered the car through traffic. “Why aren't I talking to Owen, then?”

“ _He won't leave Tosh. And Mickey won't leave Martha. Being the only man without a woman to look after in here, I ended up on comm duty. Sorry to interrupt Gwil's birthday.”_

Jack turned to Ianto, who was currently concentrating on not hitting pedestrians as he jumped a curb to move around traffic. “I might be affected.”

The Audi very narrowly missed a telephone box. “What?” Ianto gritted out.

“I might be affected,” Jack said again. “If it's something that affects women because of hormones or something, mine might be off just enough.” His eyes flickered to the backseat, then back to Ianto, who was personally trying very, very hard to just _drive_ them to their damned house, so they could drop off Gwil and get to the Hub. “You know...”

“I _know_ , Jack,” Ianto finally snapped back. He felt Jack's gaze on him, so for just a moment he glanced over. Jack's eyes were concerned – not for himself, Ianto knew, but for how Ianto might react to seeing Jack fall into a coma alongside the women in the Hub. Ianto sighed. “It'll be fine. Even if you do, between the four of us _real_ men,” a crooked grin tugged at Jack's lips, “we'll find a cure. At least we have an even number of male and female doctors.”

“I could help!”

Both Jack and Ianto turned backwards, to where Gwil was peering up at them from the backseat. Ianto had to turn away first, if only because driving while facing backwards wasn't the best of ideas. “We're dropping you off at home.”

Jack sighed. “Sorry, champ. Looks like paintball'll have to wait for another day.”

“But I could help!”

Ianto's teeth ground against each other. He was saved from having to reply by Jack speaking for him. “I don't think so. It's just Torchwood stuff. Your tad and I'll get it sorted – maybe even before dinnertime! After we're done, we'll take you out to wherever you want to go. And we'll do paintball in three weeks, when we've got the weekend off again.”

“But you need boys! I'm a boy! I could help with something! Even if it's just doing running around, for the coffee or getting files from the archive or something, I could do it! If all the aunties are hurt then I could do work to help out. I could answer the phones. Or do paperwork.”

Jack was shaking his head. Ianto could see his amused expression in his peripheral vision. Ianto's hands tightened on the wheel until his knuckles went white. “You don't need to help,” Jack reassured Gwil. “This is probably just some silly alien virus, and Uncle Owen's going to figure it out before we even get there.”

“But what if it isn't?” Gwil pleaded. “I want to help! I'm twelve now; I could help! I could help with the CCTV footage! Mickey was showing me how to go through it, and I know how! So, if like, you needed to find where the alien thing came from, or track someone down or something-”

“Enough!” Ianto slammed his hand down on the wheel. His shout stunned Jack and Gwil into silence.

“Ianto-”

Ianto shook his head, trying to quiet the panic bubbling in his chest. He took a few deep breaths, though they didn't seem to help any. In fact, holding it in, trying to calm himself down, seemed to only make his fear worse. “We're taking you home, Gwil.” His voice wasn't much calmer, Ianto knew. It was shaking and maybe even a little shrill. Ianto didn't care. Right now all he could think of was Gwil, lying in a coma alongside the women. Or Gwil, getting his arm ripped off by a weevil, or shot through the heart by the pincer hands of the Rathyn peoples. Little, small, vulnerable Gwil, almost snatched away from Ianto by the Doctor and his stupid time paradoxes.

“I don't _want_ to go!”

Both Ianto and Jack fell silent, the shock of Gwil shouting – _shouting –_ at Ianto taking a moment to sink in. Rolling vise-tight hands over the steering wheel, Ianto gritted out: “You're going home, Gwil. Where it's safe.”

“But you're not going where it's safe!” Gwil protested. “You're going to the Hub! And Dad just said it might affect him funny, and he could get hurt just like the Aunties! I won't get hurt, and you're letting Dad go even though he might get hurt! It's not fair!”

“Gwil!” When Jack spoke, Ianto relaxed somewhat. “Don't talk to your tad like that. We're bringing you home. _End_ of discussion.” Even though Gwil fell silent, Ianto could feel him seething in the backseat, glare practically burning through the back of Ianto's head.

Then they were at the house, and Jack was jumping out to steer Gwil inside. Ianto rested his head on the steering wheel and didn't look up. He didn't need to see Gwil's angry glare as he slammed the front door shut.

**

“I should apologize to him. Or maybe I shouldn't. Should I?”

Jack's arm was wrapped tight around Ianto's waist as they made their way up the path to their front door. “Why don't I talk to him first?” Jack suggested. “He might feel better talking to me.”

Ianto felt his shoulders sagging impossibly beneath an invisible weight as Jack unlocked the front door for them. It was late – too late for Gwil to be up, but the lights illuminating the interior of the house that were visible from the street told Ianto his son was most definitely awake. He had just wanted to keep Gwil  _safe_ . He was being  _reasonable_ . Twelve years old was too young to be rushing headlong into a dangerous Torchwood situation – surely Gwil could see the sense in that? Even  _Jack_ saw the sense in that, and he was the reckless one.

When they stepped inside Gwil was sitting on the sofa, soda cans and snacks strewn about him in an unusual display of messiness. Ianto's lips pressed together in a thin line. One look at Gwil's rebellious little expression said he had done this on purpose.

“It's my _birthday_ ,” he said without prompting – further supporting Ianto's theory that Gwil was being deliberately defiant. 

Jack stepped in front of Ianto, looking down at Gwil with his arms crossed over his chest. “Clean up this mess and go get ready for bed. I'll be in your room in fifteen minutes – you better have everything done by then.”

Throwing himself off the couch, Gwil started snatching up his debris. After a moment he hesitated, hands full of soda cans and empty popcorn bags. He shifted, glancing over at Jack and Ianto. “Are the Aunties at least okay?”

“They're fine,” Jack reassured him. “Uncle Owen found a cure, no problem. It was just a temporary thing, anyway: forced cat-nap. The Aunties are probably better off than the Uncles right now, with all the rest they got today.”

With a quick glance to Ianto for confirmation, Gwil nodded. “Okay.” As if it had never left, his obstinate expression settled back over his features before he stomped off to the kitchen. Ianto leaned into Jack. 

“He's so mad at me,” he wondered. “He's never been like this. How am I supposed to handle this?”

Jack chuckled softly, rubbing a hand up and down Ianto's arm. “Just let me handle this one, to start. I've probably had more experience dealing with unruly almost-teenagers than you.”

They walked back to their room together, Ianto toeing off his trainers and shucking his shirt over his head. They had dressed down for paintball today. Not that the comfortable, old clothing had done them any good waiting around the Hub. “Was I this bad at twelve? I don't  _remember_ ...” Ianto trailed off, thinking back to the lip he had started giving his tad at Gwil's age, and the smacks across the face he had gotten in response. He grunted. “Well, maybe.”

Jack raised his eyebrows pointedly, and Ianto just sighed. Fully naked now, Jack pulled Ianto into his own, fully-clothed, embrace. “Gwil's a good kid. He just wanted to help out the Aunties. If that's not good, I don't know what is.”

Ianto frowned into Jack's shirt before pushing away. “But did he? Or did he just want to have an adventure?” When Jack hesitated before his reply, Ianto drew his brows together in worry. “You see? I'm afraid...” Ianto stopped himself, then started again, in a whisper. “I'm afraid he'll be like you. With your wanderlust, and your adventurousness. And he doesn't have your safety net.”

Ianto found himself being tugged closer again, Jack's hands rubbing up and down his back in reassurance. Ianto hugged back, acting like he could squeeze all his worries and anxieties out of himself and into Jack. “He'll be okay,” Jack whispered into his ear. “We're raising him right. He's cautious, and thoughtful. He won't go running into anything.”

Unable to feel the same surety Jack felt, Ianto stayed silent. When they finally separated Jack pressed a kiss to Ianto's forehead before stepping away. “I'm going to go have a talk with him,” he said. “Even if he just wanted to help, he can't talk to you like that. And you're right: he  _is_ too young, still.”

Ianto watched as Jack left their room, a sick feeling churning in his stomach. Without really thinking about it, he snuck out to follow Jack just a moment later, stopping outside of Gwil's door. 

He could hear the bed creak as Jack sat down on it, and Gwil shifting around beneath the sheets. Jack spoke first. “You know why your tad is mad, don't you?”

“Because I just wanted to _help_ ,” was Gwil's petulant reply.

“Gwil.”

The sharpness of Jack's tone obviously gave Gwil pause, because a moment later he was mumbling: “Because I wasn't listening to Tad. And because it was dangerous.”

“Right,” Jack confirmed. “Your tad just wants to keep you safe. We _both_ want to keep you safe. And the middle of a possible alien virus outbreak is no place for a twelve-year-old boy.”

“But it was safe for boys!”

Ianto's heart clenched at the eagerness in Gwil's tone. He had caught the Torchwood bug. After all these years, and all his mishaps, Ianto thought for sure Gwil would be scared off Torchwood for good. He had seen Ianto almost die, Jack  _actually_ die (though he hadn't realized quite how dead Jack really was). Gwil himself had almost died, at the hands of an entirely benevolent alien race. And somehow, despite all the trauma, Gwil still had a passion for adventure growing inside of him.

Ianto felt cold all over thinking about the day Gwil was allowed to realize that passion.

Inside Gwil's bedroom, Jack was still talking. “It was safe for boys for now. But what happened if it had mutated, and affected boys, too? What if it was only safe for men – maybe it was based on testosterone levels. Yours would be low still, like the Aunties. Then it might have hurt you. We couldn't know, Gwil, and your tad and I don't ever,  _ever_ want to see you get hurt.”

Tears pricked at Ianto's eyes as he thought about the day Jack would have to bury Gwil. Hopefully that day was a long, long time away, and Ianto would never live to see it. But Jack would. One day, Jack would see Gwil get hurt, and never get better. Ianto slid to the floor outside of Gwil's bedroom and pressed his hands to his eyes. Why couldn't Gwil have just shown an interest in maths, or literature, or art, or music, or any one of million  _safe_ careers? Why Torchwood?

“I know, Dad,” Gwil was begrudgingly replying. “But I'm _twelve_ now-”

“Ah, ah: no.” Ianto would have laughed at Jack's stern tone if he hadn't been so busy having a miniature meltdown in the hallway. “No buts. I don't care if you're thirty: you still don't get to talk to your tad like that, and your tad and I will _still_ want to keep you safe. But maybe by then we'll have let you work for Torchwood.”

“Really?!”

Ianto's heart broke.

“Maybe. If you still want to. But there's lots of time between then and now, champ. You've got lots of things you could get interested in between now and then. And your tad and I'll love you no matter what you decide you want to do.”

Gwil's voice was trembling with excitement. “But I already know what I want to do!”

Jack's casual laugh eased the pain in Ianto's chest just a fraction. “You'd be surprised how things change. When I was twelve, I thought for sure I was going to be a... well, let's call it 'baseball', because it was close enough. I thought I was going to be a baseball player. Then, when I was sixteen, I thought for  _sure_ I was going to be a bounty hunter or mercenary or something cool like that. At nineteen I signed up for the Time Agency. By the time I was in my thirties I was done with that, and I ended up in the RAF. Point is: you might want things in two, five, ten years that you never even knew  _existed_ now. So just give it some time. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Ianto found he couldn't move even as he listened to the sounds of Jack and Gwil bidding each other goodnight. He just kept his head in his hands, trembling fingers clutching at his brow. 

“Hey.”

Wiping the tears from his face, Ianto looked up at Jack. His hand was extended, and his eyes filled with understanding.

“Come on,” Jack said, when Ianto sat frozen in his place on the floor. “Let's get to bed.”

Reaching a shaking hand up, Ianto took Jack's in his own and let himself be pulled up.   
  
  


 


End file.
